Games

For years, many of us have been bemoaning the lack of Play Store promo codes for Android apps. On the other side of the fence, iOS has had this feature forever. Now Google is getting with the program—promo codes have been added as an option in the Google Play developers console. That means you'll be able to input a code and get a free app or in-app content. Yay!

We covered the development of Disruptor Beam's Star Trek Timelines mobile game last year when they released a video intro hosted by none other than Q (John De Lancie). That game is finally available in the Play Store, and it's free. Well, free-ish. There are a boatload of in-app purchases, which is funny when you consider they don't even have money in the 24th century.

DotEmu is in the habit of porting older but well-liked games to Android. With titles like R-Type, Double Dragon, and Another World under its belt, now we get something a bit more serious. I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream was released on PC in 1995, based on the 1967 short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison. You can probably gather from the name that this is not a feel-good sort of game.

If you haven't yet checked out Rick & Morty, Adult Swim's delightfully foul science fiction cartoon, you're missing out - and not just on obscure Android Police posts. The show is only two seasons old, but it's taken the Internet by storm, filling the irreverent, high-concept, mean-spirited place that Futurama used to hold. For those of you who are already addicted and waiting patiently for season three, take a portal ride over to the Play Store: Adult Swim Games just released a licensed game that drops Rick & Morty into a tongue-in-cheek version of Pokemon.

I will admit that I don't usually get excited about the release of a new mobile game, but The Room Three is an exception. The first two games were amazing puzzlers, and the third one is finally available on Android. This game is bigger and more detailed than the previous ones, and it has Play Games cloud saves so you can play on multiple devices.

LEGO's relentless acquisition of licenses with which to make building sets is matched in fervor only by its media partner Warner Bros' frenzy to turn them into video games. So it is with Lord of the Rings, which has been a staple of the toys for years, but was made into a full-fledged video game for home and portable consoles in late 2012. As has been done with Star Wars, Batman, and a few other LEGO properties, the portable versions of that game (Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable) have been adapted into a mobile version. You can get it from the Play Store right now.

The SHIELD TV, easily the best Android TV device available (in an admittedly very short field), will be upgraded to Android Marshmallow at some point. That was never really in question; NVIDIA has been quite good about upgrading software for its first-party Android devices, usually in a timely manner. That's not the important bit of NVIDIA's recent blog post. Nope, the important part is that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a PS3 port promised since the SHIELD TV was revealed way back in March of last year, will finally be available on Thursday.

Any reasonable person might get a bit confused at the continuity of Worms, the perennial "lob stuff across the 2D map and watch it blow up" simulator. According to the franchise Wikipedia page, there have ben no less than 23 Worms games before this one, and at least one of them (from 2005) has been named Worms 4. Paradoxically, Worms 2: Armageddon and Worms 3 came after that Worms 4 (Mayhem), and now we're back to 4 again, this time with no subtitle. Maybe it's because this is the fourth Worms game to be available on mobile, if you include the disastrous version licensed by EA.

HTC raised more than a few eyebrows when it announced the Vive, a VR headset that ostensibly competes with the more well-known Oculus Rift. But far from being some one-off excursion like the Re Camera, the Vive has gained critical acclaim from those who've had access to its pre-production developer units, and HTC's partnership with Valve gives the company an in with one of the gaming industry's most influential players. At CES 2016, HTC revealed a new model, the Vive Pre, with some very interesting additions to the original.

On top of some ergonomic adjustments for more comfortable wear, the Vive Pre adds a front-facing camera to the design, which allows for easy viewing of the real world without having to remove the headset.

Games

Blown Away: First Try

Blown Away is an interesting little platforming game. The chief mechanic is a quick teleporting move - zapping from spot to spot basically replaces the main character's jump move, and creates some interesting puzzles and progression.